Montreal has passed first test toward return of baseball to city, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred says

National Post ^ | May 28, 2015 | Canadian Press

[BubbaJunebug]

I do a lot of business in PR...the problem is there is not a lot of disposable income. The economic situation is not good and hasn’t been for a few years. You couldn’t get 10-12k a game that could afford it.

[Buckeye McFrog]

Perhaps baseball will expand to 32 teams, with Montreal being one of them?

Where would you put the other one? Charlotte, NC? They had a stadium that was designed to be expanded to major league standards, but the AAA team abandoned it 2 yrs. ago for a smaller, more intimate one downtown, and it is being torn down.

Portland, Oregon? The cheese-eating surrender monkeys who live there destroyed a very nice minor league baseball stadium several years ago in order to land a Major League Soccer team. Their AAA team is now in El Paso, as they no longer have a baseball stadium.

Northern New Jersey? Yeah, like the Yankees are gonna let THAT happen!

Vancouver? Same problem as Charlotte, no stadium.

Omaha? They have a huge new stadium that only gets used one week a year for the College World Series. But no population.

There just aren't a lot of good places left to land a major league ball team. Particularly when both francises in Florida are failing.

[MikeD]

South Central Texas might be able to support one. San Antonio is larger than San Diego, and Austin supports the AAA Round Rock Express. Unfortunately, I think it would take the combined efforts of both the San Antonio and Austin metro areas to support a MLB team. San Antonio has the AA Missions (in support of the San Diego Padres), but only averages 3-4,000 a night. We support the Spurs like no other city supports an NBA team (highest local ratings in the league by a large margin), but they are proven winners with a long history. I don't know that San Antonio alone could support 81 games a year. San Marcos (roughly halfway between San Antonio and Austin) might be a perfect location, but then you have to travel 30-60 minutes from either city to see a game.

In any case, I'd love to get a NL expansion team in South Texas, partially to bring real baseball back to Texas (the DH is for losers), and partially so I could see my Braves at least once a year.

[TBP]

Montreal will be back eventually. They’re already about halfway to the number of years Washington waited.